Dissonance: when experience collides with theory

[john_cooper9]

<p>In the first days of my budding interest in photography a photographer for the local paper showed me some black and white prints of the inside of a church. The prints showed different parts of the church. Some of the prints had been spotted and then I noticed something connecting the prints; they were all made from the same perspective and were from a single negative. It was true, the photographer had set up his Rollieflex at the back of the church and taken one shot.</p>

<p>For fifty plus years this lesson has been in my subconscious. Now I have a Fotoman 4x10 film camera with a cone for a 90mm f:5.6 Super Angulon. The lens image circle does not cover 4x10 completely, maybe 4x8. For architectural and landscape photography I think I could use the implied technique to an advantage in time and materials. The image obtained after development would be scanned and the one or more views can be extracted.</p>

<p>In the intervening years my photographic equipment interests have been as follows:</p>

<p>1) 35mm film cameras with multiple lenses that affect the angle of view desired of static and moving subjects. Fast lenses for low light and fast moving subjects. The theory was “fill the frame”<br>

2) Medium format and view cameras with movements that can explore the available image circle of a lens so that the desired image can be put on a piece film. Obviously not for fast moving subjects like a motor-cross rider. The theory was “use camera movements as necessary” <br>

3) Digital cameras that emulated the 35mm film cameras with all their requirements for multiple lenses. The theory is “number and size of pixels is key to image quality”</p>

<p>None of these choices are mutually exclusive.</p>

<p>I can resolve the part of the dissonance by using the Fotoman 4x10 film camera for some landscape/architectural subjects that demand a great amount of detail. Have you ever stood in front of a painting by Brueghel and taken it all in! That’s what I want to be able to do with some of my photographs. The rest can be achieved with “the right camera lens combination” and being there. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>John,</p>

<p>Interesting approach. I have used it with my 6 x 9 cm Fuji, using the extra negative area to tilt the camera downwards on building verticals in order to use a smaller negative area to overcome to some degree the keystoning. It does mean using one extremity of the field and thereby suffering a bit with the lesser edge rendition. On the other hand I have sometimes used the 65 mm lens and centering the subject within a smaller imagined frame that by subsequent cropping provides a short telephoto effect (equivalent to a 65 mm lens in a 2.5 x 3.6 cm frame). Going the other way, I reduce the (approximate) 6 cm height of the frame to 4.5 or 3 cm, in order to reproduce the effect of a 1:2 or 1:3 aspect ratio rather than the 1:1.5.</p>

<p>The saving of negative frame costs by your approach is to my mind of lesser importance than the three following results or consequences:</p>

<p>1) The fixing of the position of exposure, which may or may not be good for the various subjects within the overall frame that would later be cropped;</p>

<p>2) The loss of resolution of the Fotoman in going to smaller effective frame sizes and enlarging to a specific size (similar to that done with the full frame);</p>

<p>3) The probable poorer overall resolution of the off of centre crops.</p>

[john_cooper9]

<p>Arthur, I like your three points. However, I can live with the loss of resolution because my experience with Fuji 64T in 4x5 shooting with a 135mm Componon-S to copy a watercolor painting is that the resolving power of the film is 100+ lpm, with virtually no visible grain. I have had 30x40 inch prints made that can withstand close examination with regard to sharpness and resolution. Digitally, I believe, only a 4x5 scanning back can match this, although sometimes it seems that my Sony A850 comes close.</p>

[randrew1]

<p>When I was in college I used to use my grandfather's 4x5 Crown Graphic at football games. I would buy 5 inch wide rolls of Plus-X Aero film and cut 4x5 sheets. As John found, with large format, you don't need a telephoto lens--just crop. I once got two distinct images from the same negative. Down field the receiver was catching the ball while in the backfield, the quarter back had been knocked down after the pass. </p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>John, given that my experience with larger formats is completely absent, rather than the technical points, I think there is also simply a difference in approach underneath. It's not only a matter of what technique allows us to do.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Have you ever stood in front of a painting by Brueghel and taken it all in! That’s what I want to be able to do with some of my photographs.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When I just had a wide angle lens, I took so many pictures of cathedrals (in and out), landscapes - taking it all in. Many of these photos now bore me. Yes, I could drill down to discover the images hidden inside it, and crop those out. I'll probably find some. If I'd be bothered to try.... but I'm not.<br>

Because it just isn't the same for me. As a photographer, for me there is a link between the resulting photo and what I thought/visualised when I shot it. A mood, light condition, moment I tried to capture, or an idea/approach I hard when I captured it. Discovering images afterwards inside that is a different thing.<br>

Not wrong, not superior or inferior, not more or less photographic - just different. Disregarding all points on resolution, grain, pixels (which are all valid considerations too) - it is a different activity in a way. Fill the frame is cropping inside my head before making the shot, instead of the other way around. Different strokes, different people, different targets... not sure there is a dissonance really.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

When using a longer lens on a 35mm camera one is in effect cropping out from the full frame. If everyone used and was familiar with 8x10 cameras with their normal 300mm lenses, then 35mm cameras would come with 50mm lenses call "lens equivalent to 300mm".

 

Take a photo of a deer in a field with a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens and also with an 8x10 camera with a 300mm lens. Except for size, both negatives would be identical, the same angle of view and field of view. (The 35mm would be slightly wider.) But, you could take an Exacto knife and cut out a 36x24mm section from the 8x10 negative that has the deer in it and put that in an enlarger. You would get the same print as if you used a 300mm lens on the 35mm camera to get a frame (36x24mm) filling shot of the deer. So, the 35mm camera is a crop camera.

 

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[henryp]

<p>For the album "Stage Fright," by The Band, this image was used inside:<br /><a href="http://pdalbury.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/stage_fright_normann-seeff_portrait.jpg">http://pdalbury.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/stage_fright_normann-seeff_portrait.jpg</a><br /> The image is by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Seeff">Norman Seeff</a>. Eventually the image was reprinted as five different shots each featuring one band member, but each of those individual portraits originated from the original group negative.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Very substantial parts of <a href="/classic-cameras-forum/00cbVC"><em>Rear Window</em></a> (Hitchcock) are essentially shot from a very limited range of camera placements.</p>

<p>I think it was the film version of <em>Catch-22</em> on which almost all exterior on-location shooting was done at roughly the same time of day.</p>

<p>Sometimes, limits can be liberating -- surely that's what all those people going to "analog" photography seem to be saying. "Nouveau Film" shooters, as I call it ;)</p>

[john_cooper9]

<p>Do you remember the final scene in the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". The two heroes sprang out of their hideout with guns ablaze only to be killed by an army. The camera zooms away to a wide shot. I read that this was accomplished with an 8x10 film camera that shot the original view and the zoom effect was from this piece of film.</p>

<p>I am still pursuing this approach:</p>

<p>1) found an old Linhof Kardan TE on Craig's list for $40,<br>

2) found a 4x10 back that fits the Kardan TE from China on Ebay for $940 shipped free,<br>

3) found on Ebay Fujinon SW in 105 and 125mm,<br>

4) found on Ebay Fujinon W 250mm and Schneider SA 121mm,<br>

5) still looking for a 300mm and 360mm, but they are too expensive,<br>

6) have 14 sheets of 4x10 FP4 in the freezer,<br>

7) have 10 sheets of 8x10 Provia that need cutting, also in the freezer,<br>

8) have a Fotoman splitter and are waiting for a changing tent to come from China.</p>

<p>I think I will stay nearer to home and take images of our local parks and river and sea locations. I still get a thrill out of looking at large images on a light box. Ones I really like can be scanned and made into large prints.</p>

<p>I plan to do scouting of locations with my Sony A700 digital camera with 21-35mm and 24mm old Minolta AF lenses. I will also use my Linhof 6x9 viewer that goes from 53-240mm. </p>